Don't Present Israelis With a Fait Accompli;Likud's Role

Re Thomas L. Friedman's "No Pain, No Gain, No Peace" (column, March 31): Whenever conservative candidates appear to be on the verge of winning critical national elections, one can always find commentators who warn that international peace is at risk. The newest target of these warnings is Israel's Likud leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The problem is that the policies that have underpinned the 1993 Oslo agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization have produced the opposite of peace. Indeed, more Israelis died from terrorist attacks since the agreement was signed than in the previous decade. The terrorism of stabbings that preceded the 1992 Israeli elections was replaced with a far more lethal terrorism of exploding buses in the heart of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Military-grade explosives not used since the early 1980's reappeared in the Gaza Strip in large quantities. And Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, did not live up to expectations in disarming and fighting the Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

The role of an opposition is not to continue with a policy that has failed but to chart a new course for Israel. That course is based on the premise that peace cannot exist without security.

For this to work, peace cannot be dependent on Mr. Arafat's intentions; it must preserve Israeli capabilities for self-defense. This is the difference between the approach begun in Oslo and the peace strategy Israel needs today.

DORE GOLD Jerusalem, April 3, 1996 The writer, a professor at Tel Aviv University, is a consultant on national security affairs to Mr. Netanyahu.